Playboy

Playboy had been producing Girls of Summer Special Editions for some time when Executive Editor Jeff Cohen decided they ought to make a Girls of Winter edition as well. "This was shot in late fall, up in Oregon on Mount Hood," he recalls. "It is an area where a lot of catalogs are shot in the fall — they can go up to that elevation for snow."

This image is an outtake from the leading shot, chosen by the photographer for inclusion in the Collection. The models are actually the "Girls of KISS"

"I think this is a great, fabulously composed shot that shows Gene Simmons in his famous KISS gear, surrounded by beautiful women," says Norman Solomon. "His tongue is projecting out of his mouth and all the gals are also in KISS makeup. To me it is another popular shot that will appeal to everybody, especially KISS fans and music fans around the world ." Rasika Reichardt: "I love how Freytag captures Gene Simmons's self-indulgence-it's a piece of glam rock history."

"My pictures are escapist," David LaChapelle told American Photo magazine in 2001. "For me, pictures are fantasies. At the same time, they're a document of our time."

In July 2001, PLAYBOY asked La Chapelle to photograph "The Adventures of Pam," a surrealistic romp through the blonde superstar's life, from "Schoolgirl in Braces" to "Tool Time Girl" to "V.I.Penis," wherein Pam is straddling Marcus Schenkenberg, her hand resting on the hunky male model's crotch. The pictorial ends with "Cover Girl"

Everybody always asks Bunny Yeager about the cheetahs. "Their names are Mojah and Mbili which in Swahili means one and two," said Yeager. Mojah and Mbili had appeared as Roman emperor Nero's pets in Quo Vadis (1951), were featured in two documentaries and were living in Africa USA, a now-defunct wildlife sanctuary in Boca Raton, before their star turn posing with the most famous pin up model of all time, Bettie Page, for one of her most famous and beloved photo sessions with Yeager — the "Jungle Bettie" pictures.

There is some mystery surrounding this photograph — none of the senior editors recognize it or recall any details about it. It features Tiffany Sloan, Miss October of 1992 and was photographed by Los Angeles-based fashion and beauty photographer David D'Angelo.

An ad in the Chicago Tribune on January 4, 1960 read: "To serve our exclusive clientele and decorate the club, we are looking for 30 single girls between 18 and 25. Experience is not needed. Just be beautiful, charming and refined." Over 400 girls applied to be Bunnies; only 30 were selected and began training for the Playboy Club grand opening.

For the magazine's August 1964 issue, PLAYBOY featured the best of the "beautiful, charming and refined" Bunnies of the Chicago Playboy Club, including Cheryl Vincent, a painter and beauty queen, who is posing here in a champagne-themed club promotion photo.

Arny Freytag photographed actress Traci Bingham on location in Jamaica, one of his favorite shoots for the magazine.

Her shoot with Freytag was meant to be an exclusive one, but she was let go from the show just before the pictures were to be published, so PLAYBOY never ran them. "They ran one picture of her with the Babes of Baywatch pictorial and it was a beautiful shooting," says Freytag.

In this striking image, Glaviano captured Angie's height and her physical presence against a dramatic dusky sky. Angie, who once told her grandmother she would never pose nude, said, "I was nervous on my first day. I called my grandmother before the shoot and she was silent at first. I told her I was going to take beautiful pictures. She said, 'I trust you, Angie'."